Parallel
by queenly
Summary: Conversations grow bizarrely arcane once dawn and dusk melt together. Kaiba wishes he hadn't chosen a suitor so damn philosophical. Rivalshipping.


**A/N: i tried to write something light...ehhhh...**

"Do you think there's an actual purpose to everything, or does everyone just... _exist?_ "

Florescent numerics displaying 3:12 ante meridiem mean- _obviously_ -that it is the prime time to ponder upon life's darkest mysteries. Kaiba turns his head on its side, sighing in a way that discloses his dissent to consciousness.

"I have a meeting in the morning," he mumbles into his pillow.

Yuugi seems hooked upon his own ideas. "Really, I know destiny is supposed to lead you on the right path. But beyond that...what's the reason?"

Air roughly exits him again. "You're supposed to pass right out after sex. Not have an existential crisis."

"No, I...I mean it." There's a bounce to his tone, though it is kept low. The sheets crinkle as he shifts to his side, fixing Kaiba with a gaze shining impossibly bright beneath moon's glow. "What if there's some deep meaning to general life that no one's discovered yet, 'cause we're all too busy with our individual ones?"

"I don't know," Kaiba remarks in an insipid voice that relays moreso: _I don't care._

"What if...what if we're all just copies of other beings in other galaxies? There could be thousands each of everyone all leading different lives."

Strictly downward, Kaiba stabs his lidded vision. "A few of you got lost on their way to their own planets, I'd say."

Kaiba does not expect the vibrancy that illuminates Yuugi's face in response to the quip. "You know, maybe you're right."

He forces his long stare to no longer below, but directly at his suitor. "You're saying the Pharaoh is an alien."

"Not an alien, per se. Like...just, something else."

If there's ever been a more appropriate time to unleash a wave of smooth exasperation, Kaiba is glad he's missed it. "Go to sleep, Yuugi."

And he can't help but chortle quietly at that. "I'm trying."

"You're reestablishing your entire philosophy on existence," he scoffs. "That's not trying very hard."

"Not my _entire_ philosophy." His head acquaints to pillow, unfolding into a mess of alert exhaustion. "Just a little."

"Goodnight."

Lids close over tired eyes, serenely raveled in warmth and darkness and silence.

Kaiba is allotted a meager minute of this placidity.

"Your favorite color is blue."

Sharp and curt, he exhales. "Good to know."

"Maybe Seto Kaiba number eight thousand seventeen's favorite color is- is red, or something," Yuugi muses. "And he has a wife and kids. And a dog. Or three dogs, who knows?"

"And no boyfriend who keeps him awake all night. What a lucky bastard."

"He could be your polar opposite," he continues sans faze. "He probably smiles all the time, and believes in magic, and doesn't care for competition."

Kaiba nearly groans at the stupidity of it all, instead narrows his gaze and lets more futility drip out. "You just described yourself."

"What-? No, I..." His lips twist in oddity. "My favorite color isn't red."

Kaiba finds himself rolling eyes, finds himself digging further unto it all. "I'm not talking about _that,_ you geek." Then, there's another moment in which none stir. "...I'd have more in common with Yuugi Mutou number three hundred twenty five than with you."

"Well...that's okay," the current Yuugi assures. "Opposites attract, right?"

A slow shaking of head, and repetitive command. "Go to sleep."

The warmth and darkness and silence are not as sweet as they were the first time around, Kaiba discovers quickly, and he's almost grateful that it is disrupted again.

"There's got to be something we have in common."

"I don't know, Yuugi," Kaiba insists in form of lengthy breath. "Games."

Yuugi nods, all in favor, grinning. "Yeah! Games. Duel Monsters is why we even know each other in the first place."

Where he'd intended solid reassurance is filled in by chill; uncertainty; an airy humorless laugh.

"It sounds pathetic when you say it outright."

As the words take affect, Yuugi's beam fades in ecstasy. "...Either way, I'm glad."

Kaiba contemplates upon the information so suddenly yanked to surface. He met the love of his life because of a card game. The very same game he, a refined and intelligent twenty year old, bases his entire business off of.

 _Wow_.

"Maybe," Yuugi says after a swift while. "Seto and Yuugi number...seventy eight hundred met at a coffee shop because they ordered the same exact drink. And now they're madly in love, and have the same taste in music, and movies, and everything else."

He finds the statement too heavy for proper analyzation, placing focus instead on a singular detail- "You don't drink coffee."

"Exactly," Yuugi says. "But Yuugi seventy five hundred does."

"Seventy _eight_ hundred."

"...Seto seventy eight hundred probably doesn't correct people."

Kaiba scoffs, "Yuugi seventy eight hundred probably doesn't ponder on alternate universes."

He snorts out a sort of impassive amusement. "Go marry him, then."

And before Kaiba has chance to hush himself, "I'd rather marry you."

Stunned silence. In the overlying gleam of the night, he observes the way Yuugi's eyes go owlish, the glaring flush that highlights gauche lips. "...Was that-? Like, ah, did you... _mean_ that?"

He's frozen, trapped by the vulnerability set in alongside exhaustion, by the cruel way early hours pull emotion from anywhere. "...Go to sleep, Yuugi."

This time around, he plays obedient. Yet the twitching to his lips prevents real relaxation of mind. It at last erupts, bubbling laughter smothered by thwap of pillow to his face. He pushes it off, settling lopsided grin toward the perpetrator; one whom firmly aims his burning face elsewhere. Anywhere else.

"I don't know them personally," Yuugi's expression blares allure. "But I'm sure the Yuugis of every universe would say 'yes' to that."

From beneath the coolness of his pillow, Kaiba allows his hand to be dragged out, allows fingers to wrap themselves within his own. There's a breath of finality, and of contentment, and Yuugi finds his mind at last too laggard to conform to consciousness. As he relinquishes himself to the slumber that had eluded him so, the form aside him shifts ever slight, catching gaze of his tranquil expression- and the joy that lingers. And, with the moment so flawless, Kaiba arbitrates in firm certitude that life, however volatile, absolutely has set purpose. A purpose for which he owes his desire to continue his own existence, because what a wonderful existence it is whenever they are in conjunction. Day or night.


End file.
